


Cops and Robbers

by flameofarcana



Category: Naruto
Genre: LMFAO - Freeform, M/M, but ayyoooooo, but its very minor, there are lots of other characters but im not listing them all, there is some minor kisaita in this, this is a cluster fuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-08-21 12:43:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16576724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flameofarcana/pseuds/flameofarcana
Summary: Konoha is corrupt to its core, and private investigator Itachi Uchiha gets himself caught up in a case that's way over his head. Then he blackmails the most notorious thief the country has ever seen to do his dirty work.Now he's really, really in over his head.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> aye
> 
> did anyone want some shiita? bc here's some shiita
> 
> this is gonna be a little kinda graphic. not now. but in the later chapters there's gonna be some gore and violence. so just fyi.
> 
> this is wholly shiita but there is some past/mentioned/referenced kisaita. its not going to be that big of a deal but it does pop up a couple times. just fyi. 
> 
> konoha is a fictional ass country. please don't look to hard into this worldbuilding. i didn't think it through. be gentle. im beg. that being said, i reference this-world artifacts and countries. just roll with it, please. IM BEG. 
> 
> also--the things that are mentioned to be stolen /through out this fic/ are either totally made up items or were not stolen. this is fiction and it TURNS OUT that there haven't been that many priceless artifacts that have been stolen in the first place, so i had to bend history a little. 
> 
> why am i writing another fic when i have two in the works? shut up
> 
> enjoy :^)

“We should just wait for Father to get here, Itachi.”

“Now what happened to all that independence you wanted, Sasuke?” Itachi tilts his head, staring through the one-way window. “We’ll call him when he’s finished with the mayor.”

He almost growls. “Do you want me to go strangle him? Because I will gladly strangle him.”

“I know, little brother,” Itachi replies. He pushes away from the wall and walks to his desk. His coffee mug—white, plain—sits next to a pile of reports—neat, stacked—and a laptop—closed, dusted. He picks up his coffee and takes a sip, eyes squinted. Thinking, calculating. The things he is best at. “I’m going to go back in one more time. I have one last idea.”

“I’m coming.”

Itachi sets his mug back down, walking back to the interrogation room. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Sasuke elbows passed him instead of responding.

“Whoo!” The curly haired man cheers from the chair. “The cops are back! Thank goodness. I was getting so lonely.” Itachi admires that he can look so cheery with blood on his face and his wrists tied up behind his back.

“We aren’t cops,” Itachi reminds, nonchalant, walking in after his brother.

“Ah, yes, you’re just pretend cops. Watered down cops.” His eyes sparkle. “Couldn’t get into ivy league so you went to community cops.”

Itachi refrains from pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I’ll give you another split lip,” Sasuke threatens.

“Do it! I hate the asymmetry of only one.” He licks his lips around his grin, tongue sliding over the bloody gash, and leans forward.

“Sasuke,” Itachi sighs. He steps next to his brother.

“This isn’t going anywhere!” Sasuke growls. “Let’s just hand him over to the police and be done with it!”

“Not so fast.” He eyes the man for a moment. “Tell me your name.”

“Flicker.”

“Your _real_ name, please.”

The man grins, eyes unwaveringly mischievous. “No dice.”

Itachi sighs, pulling the only other folding chair over and sitting down across from him. “If you insist. Flicker, I’m going to level with you. We both have much to gain from working together right now.”

“As if I’ve never heard that before.”

Itachi continues as if he hadn’t said anything. “Right now you have blood on your hands—”

“I didn’t kill anybody!”

Itachi is surprised at the outburst. Something had shifted ever so slightly in the man’s eyes, from glee to anger, from laughter to defensiveness. Interesting, wasn’t it—was he tapping into a moral code, or did he just hate being falsely accused, or was Itachi just getting too close to the truth?

“I had _nothing_ to do with any of those deaths. Didn’t take the kid, either.”

“And I believe you. But the police? I know this city, Flicker, and they are too eager and too lazy to do their jobs properly. They’ll convict you without a doubt. They’ll make an example of you to other criminals, and use your incarceration to regain the trust of the people in this city. Believe me when I say that, should we turn you in, you _will_ become a convicted murderer. Do you really want to serve a sentence you do not deserve?”

He snorts. “You don’t scare me. I get my fair trial. I’m innocent, and I can prove it.”

“You are naïve enough to believe that the attorneys are clean? That the judges aren’t being bribed, that the jurors aren’t so desperate to rid this city of crime that they’ll persecute anyone just to make themselves feel better?”

“Oh, what, every authority in this god forsaken city is in each other’s pockets? Is that what you expect me to believe?”

Itachi levels his gaze. “Have you not wondered why a pair of privately hired investigators are looking into a murder and kidnapping, instead of the police?” He tilts his head. “Besides, even if you did strike out with an honest defense attorney, you are an accomplished thief, a master of stealth. You have no alibi; you cannot prove anything; your very existence is a lie, a shadow.” His eyes are cold. “And if you cannot prove anything, you will be guilty by default.”

‘Flicker’s’ expression flattens even further. His eyes shift back and forth, quick, before settling on Itachi again.

Itachi is pleased.

A trapped animal.

“This is the worst negotiation I’ve ever heard.”

Itachi arches a single eyebrow.

“You son of a—”

Itachi holds up a hand, cutting his brother off. “No, Flicker, do go on. Why is this the worst negotiation?”

He scoffs. “You have nothing to offer me. ‘Work together’—hardly! You’ll have me spill everything I know and then just hand me in. And I’ll be boo boo the fucking fool.”

Itachi blinks at that. “I do not intend to make you…any type of fool,” he assures. “I do plan to offer you what we will hopefully both find agreeable.”

“As if the two of us could ever agree on anything.”

“Do you _want_ me to snap your fucking neck?” Sasuke growls, fists clenched at his sides.

“I’d like to see you _try_ , pretty boy! What a pampered little baby like you gonna do, huh? I know your _type_ , kid; you’re all bark and no bite.”

“Oh, I’ll fucking bite you alright, you fucking—!”

Itachi sighs again, wondering when the over dramatic antics would end, and holds a hand in front of Sasuke’s chest. “That is quite enough.”

“I’ll tell you when—”

“ _Sasuke_.”

That tone is enough to get him quiet, biting back a growl.

Itachi turns his attention back to the handcuffed man. “Please, Flicker, no need to be so unreasonable.”

“I think I got every reason to be unreasonable.”

Itachi stares at him. Cold, blank, uncaring.

“Oh, come on,” he snorts, rolling his eyes and head, curly mop flopping to one side. “And what are _you_ going to do about it? Flutter your eyelashes until I fall in love?”

Itachi is almost amused with his behavior. Clearly the man thinks he can simply annoy Itachi to death—which, to be fair, he was making a valiant effort towards. However, Itachi has a patience matched by no other man. What this Flicker _doesn’t_ understand is that Itachi practically raised Sasuke, something that should speak for itself.

“I would like to speak about an agreement between the two of us.”

“And I would like a double double with a strawberry milkshake.”

“Are you formally asking for that to be a part of our deal.”

Flicker grimaces, eyes turning dark. “Oh, fuck off with all of that already. You and I both know you’re bluffing.”

“Far from it,” Itachi assures, crossing an ankle over his knee. “Should you hear me out, I think my offer will be quite pleasing to you.”

“ _Pleasing_? Are you offering me a fucking blowjob?”

Itachi doesn’t take the bait. He keeps his dry stare, boring into the other man. He lets his eyes scrutinize as they roll lazily over his face—the slightly crooked nose, no doubt from fist fights, the haphazard curly hair, the jawline that could sharpen a knife, down to the pores on his cheeks and the stray hair around his eyebrows.

He can feel Sasuke get more agitated by the second behind him, but he ignores it. He can wait forever. Besides, he wants to prove to his father that he could get the most notoriously sneaky thief known to man under his thumb like a crippled roach.

The man lets out a dramatic sigh, groaning as he rolls his head in a circle. “You really wanna yank my chain, huh?”

“I’m merely waiting for you to be cooperative enough to hear me out.”

With a huff, he meets Itachi’s eyes dryly. “ _Fine_. Hit me with your best shot.”

Itachi waits calmly a few more seconds, just testing the waters, before nodding once. “We ask for your complete compliance in your active case. You would be required to divulge information about underground crime rings you have been a part of, as well as the inner workings of the black market.”

“Keep dreaming.”

Itachi ignores him. “This would also entail you going undercover for us as a double agent to retrieve specific information as new leads develop.”

“I said _keep dreaming_.”

“You have not even let me explain what you would be getting out of it.”

He scoffs. “As if it would matter. But go ahead, pretty boy! Tempt me.”

Itachi folds his hands. “You would receive complete protection while you are in our service. We assure you that the police will not mettle in your affairs, nor will they be given the opportunity to charge you. You will receive housing, food, clothing, and additional commodities that you may request within reason.”

“Like a PS4?”

Itachi tilts his head. “We’re more of an XBOX family, but I can see what strings I can pull.”

Sasuke snorts. Flicker made a disgusted face.

“I should have known you were one of _those_ ,” he mutters. “Well as much as I would just _love_ to take a stroll down Halo 3’s memory lane, I’m afraid that’s just not a good enough offer.”

“I have not finished.”

“Oh goody,” he replies dryly. “Look, buddy, you’re wasting your time. There’s nothing you got for me that’s going to change my mind.”

“Are you sure about that?” Itachi inquires, feeling a little smug. He learns forward. “You will also receive full immunity for all concurrent,” he meets his eyes, “and past crimes.”

The look of blank shock that washes over his face left Itachi brimming on the inside.

“What?” Sasuke snaps.

Itachi presses on. “Additionally, I’m offering you an all-expenses paid ticket of your choice to a destination of your choice, as well as a cash compensation for your time and efforts that will continue to be calculated as the case progresses.”

Flicker blinks at him once. 

Itachi can feel Sasuke’s outrage.

“A little better than a PS4, wouldn’t you say?”

He doesn’t get a response.

Itachi straightens his back, folding his hands in front of him. “And, let me remind you, shall you refuse my offer, I _will_ be turning you over to the hands of the police.”

He can see the slight straining of Flicker’s muscles.

“I will let you think things over. When you have made a decision you may call for us, or simply wait until we choose to return.” He stands up, grabbing the back of the chair and pulling it back into the wall. He nods toward Sasuke, a gesture for him to follow, and holds the door open.

It barely has time to click closed before Sasuke is in his face with angry eyes, hissing, “Are you out of your mind, Itachi?!”

“No,” he quips blandly. He moves to his desk and snags his white coffee mug with one lazy hand. He needs to wash it before the white porcelain stains brown.

“We can’t offer him any of that!” His brother continues to outrage. “Father is going to be furious with us!”

“I am more than willing to take all the blame for this,” Itachi replies, letting Sasuke follow him into the small, not-quite-a-kitchen their tiny, temporary facility offered. “But that means I’ll take all the credit, too, when this works.”

“It’s not going to work because its _asinine!_ ”

“You really have become more excitable over the years, baby brother.”

“Don’t call me that,” Sasuke snaps.

“Aw,” Itachi smiles—a smug, sardonic smile— “You used to love it when I called you that.”

Sasuke fully ignores him. “Father won’t sign off on this.”

“He will if the mayor approves.”

“Why do you think the mayor will ever agree to what you are suggesting?”

Water splashes against the stainless-steel sink. Itachi dumps out the mug, shakes it dry a few times, and sets it on the counter. He turns to his brother. “Why do I think that the mayor will agree to a plan that shuttles the most notorious criminal Konoha has ever seen out for good?”

Sasuke’s expression stiffens as he realizes he hasn’t considered that.

“I don’t think that Sarutobi is placing a price tag on his grandson’s head. He will pay whatever price, he will do whatever it takes.” Itachi dries his hands on a towel. “Doing whatever it takes almost always involves getting your hands dirty.”

Sasuke snorts. “So you’re encouraging the mayor to commit fraud. You know he’s just going to use tax payer money for all your promised gifts, right?”

Itachi raises an eyebrow. He crosses his arms and leans against the counter. “You suddenly care that Konoha is corrupt to its core?”

“You don’t?”

“Of course, I care, to a degree. But there are bigger problems to tackle first. Those things tend take care of themselves once the higher ups are replaced.”

Sasuke grumbles indistinctly.

“What if the fucker doesn’t cooperate.”

“Then he doesn’t get his shiny prize, and we throw him in jail.”

“And then what?!”

“Then we start over,” Itachi says, like it is obvious, because it is. “We won’t lose anything.”

“We lose time. That time could mean anything for the kid’s life.”

Itachi shrugs, conceding his statement. “Yes. We also waste time fucking around trying to find leads.” He turns back to the counter, opening a cabinet and searching for snacks. “Leads, might I add, that we have already used up and run out of.” He finds a box of pocky—he has to remind himself to do something nice for Izumi sometime. “ _Leads_ , might I once again add, that had nothing to do with the two fresh bodies from yesterday. This case is getting bigger than we thought it would; we aren’t equipped to deal with what it is turning into. We don’t have the intel, and it will take too to track a reliable source down from scratch.”

Sasuke still looks unsure.

“What is your idea, then, Sasuke? Say we turn flicker over to the authorities, and he rots in jail for the rest of his life. We have no link to the underground crime rings. We have no eyewitness of what happened on Capital street. We have no one with any know-how or connections.” He turns, leveling his brother with an intense stare. “What do you say we do?”

Sasuke looks uncomfortable under the scrutiny, although he tries to hide it. “We can go undercover. We don’t need another criminal’s hand; either of us could do the job just fine.”

“Do you have any idea how long it would take to build enough credibility to gain anyone’s trust in the underground? Do you know the things we would have to do to prove ourselves? Flicker is a loophole to all of that. He is the single most legendary criminal of Konoha simply for his longevity and stealth. No one would have any reason to believe that he is a double agent.”

“And if they find out?” Sasuke fixes Itachi with a meaningful look. “They’ll kill him, Itachi. And his blood will be on your hands.”

And that always has been Itachi’s weakness—death. He doesn’t want people to die. It sounds silly, obvious—of course he doesn’t want people to die, anyone sane wouldn’t. But in Konoha, in the grit and grime of corruption and crime, human lives are like nickels and dimes behind the scenes. It’s why the Uchiha became private investigators, and not cops. The cops are dirty—filthy. The number of people that die on the streets or in prisons and they get off because of their immunity is revolting. The police force now mostly serves whoever will bribe them the most, and have no qualms disturbing and planting evidence.

Besides, the Uchiha are simply better at the job.

“We will take extreme precautions to keep that from happening.”

Sasuke snorts.

Itachi glares. “We know what we are doing. It won’t happen.”

Sasuke leans against the wall, contemplative.

Itachi gently tears open a pocky bag. “I have faith in this idea, little brother. I wouldn’t put yours, or father’s, or my name on it if I didn’t think it would work. You are welcome to remove yourself from this case if you don’t want to be associated with it. I won’t hold it against you.” He levels with him. “But, Sasuke, you and I are nearly an unstoppable force when working together.”

Sasuke grunts. “And throwing this petty thief into the mix could be the wrench in our machine.”

Itachi tilts his head side to side, considering, munching a pocky stick. “He could. He could also be the last missing piece for total success.”

Sasuke closes his eyes, looking like he wants to groan. “He may not even accept the offer.”

“In which case you will be able to rest easy.” He pauses. “And our missing persons might end up very permanently resting easy.”

Several seconds tick by. Itachi continues his munching, unbothered by Sasuke’s quiet contemplating. He is fully confident in his plan. Really, this Flicker has no other option—it is the only chance to stay out of jail, even if he doesn’t fully believe that Itachi is telling the truth, and the thief is the type of criminal that wants to be as slippery as possible; he wouldn’t take to ending up behind bars, under complete scrutiny, with no freedom or secrecy.

“Fine,” Sasuke says eventually. “I’ll go along with your insanity.”

Itachi smiles. He reaches out, quick, and pokes Sasuke on the forehead, right between his eyebrows.

Sasuke squawks. “Fuck you, I told you not to do that anymore!”

“You love it,” Itachi sing-songs, sticking another pocky in his mouth and leaving the kitchen.

Their temporary building is half dilapidated, with paint peeling off the walls, tiles coming loose off the floor, and whole chunks of the ceiling missing. It is enough, though, with a holding room for those who need to be questioned and enough space for Itachi to put a desk to work at. The kitchen and bathroom are perks, honestly.

He sits back down at his desk, adjusting the small lamp, and gathers his papers in his hands again. Should Flicker agree to this deal he struck, they would need to move quickly. They don’t have much time, and they need to milk as much out of the criminal as possible before his trust starts to sour.

He does believe that the thief wasn’t involved with the shooting earlier that day. Flicker has no confirmed casualties—even when he uses chloroform or tranquilizers, the affected people were almost entirely unharmed. Flicker didn’t want to kill, he just wanted to steal.

Itachi is curious as to why. Flicker has stolen items from museums, political buildings, private estates, even zoos and scientific research centers. Nothing was off limits, but at the same time…his pattern was odd. He has taken the liberty to browse through the file for him they had hastily scrapped together, and, honestly, it frustrates him how much the man’s actions confused him.

Eleven years ago, when the master of stealth was only a blip on anyone’s radar, the first incident that is confidently agreed upon by law enforcement to be the work of Flicker—jewelry went missing out of a wealthy woman’s estate. He would have been dismissed as a petty cat burglar, except for the fact that this jewelry was no _ordinary_ collection. She had _old_ jewelry. Pearl earrings from the renaissance, gold bangles from ancient Istanbul, a diamond necklace said to be from the dress of princess Anastasia, pendants of coins whose legacy ranged from Babylon to the sunken Atocha. All of it went missing in a single night—and yet the house was not ransacked. It seemed that he knew exactly what was in her collection, and where it was stashed. Even more interesting, Flicker only chose the things that had more than simply monetary value. He preened through her collection, skipping over piles of emeralds, rubies, and opals, leaving elaborate gold and diamond untouched. Her alarm system was armed, but never triggered. Her guard dog was sleeping peacefully downstairs like nothing happened. They didn’t find a hair or a fingerprint anywhere. Forensics scoured the property for days and were left baffled.

He disappeared for almost two years. And then, about nine years ago years ago, his second strike—a local museum, who had some of Gaudi’s original sketches on display, borrowed from Barcelona for a limited edition exhibit on European Architecture. A set of drawings for a completed room in La Sangrada Familia—gone. Dissapeared one day and _no one_ had any idea how they were stolen, or even _when_ exactly they were stolen. Security footage was found to be jumbled for _three days_ and no guard remember seeing anything out of the ordinary. Everyone they had record of coming to the exhibit was tracked down, all to no avail.

Eight years ago, in the incident that got him his nickname—a collector’s mansion was burglarized. He had purchased a partially dilapidated bust of a roman emperor, a rare collectible plucked right from Italy. Maybe that doesn’t seem so outrageous, right? The man was _home_ when it was stolen, in the same _room_. There was a power outage that day, due to a storm, and the man had lit candles around his home. He was sitting in his living room, where the bust sat on a pedestal by the wall, watching the rain beat the trees and reading, when he looked up from his novel and the stone head was simply _gone_. He hadn’t heard a damn thing, there was no sign of forced entry, no muddy footprints from the rain, _nothing_. This thief became a little more high profile that night—after all, you had to watch out for someone who could slip right under your nose, undetected, within the _flicker_ of a candle.

Seven years ago, again—a science museum. In a bout of thievery that took everyone off guard, Flicker snuck in and swept over all the precious gems and stole a small glass case that held a specimen of an extinct butterfly. This case was debated on whether or not it really was Flicker’s handiwork, but most people agreed that it must have been him.

Six years ago, a pop culture museum—two lipsticks that belonged to Marilyn Monroe were stolen, along with a lighter that had once been James Dean’s, and a bat-star prop from the original Batman. This was an even more confuddling burglary—why would flicker change gears from stealing priceless pieces of the world’s history to mere souvenirs of dead celebrities? No one knew.

Five years ago—that was a big year for him. He stepped his game up, hitting three museums, a private collector, and a fucking _submarine_ , from a great war, docked locally and available to tour. He went _crazy_ that year, bolder than he had been before, stealing things of greater value from before, from places with more security than he had ever tampered with. Itachi wonders what was so special about that year.

Anyone with anything valuable started to get worried. This guy wasn’t messing around, and he was clearing every security measure anyone had put in place yet. So more guards were hired, more watch dogs were trained, more security cameras were installed.

It didn’t stop him.

He got a hold of tranquilizers, portable technology scramblers, became the next Cesar Milan, apparently, for all the good the dogs did. So they hopped up the guards on caffeine to counteract the tranquilizers, and Flicker just got stronger drugs. They upped their technology—Flicker upped even harder.

Five years ago—a huge political controversy. A local senator was accused of submitting to bribery, using tax payer money to hire a bunch of prostitutes and throw lavish parties, using town hall meetings to smuggle cocaine into the city. They got a bunch of dirt on him on record. It was a huge, huge deal, but local politicians wanted to reel it in as best as they could and do damage control. Konoha looked bad enough. So they locked all the records down as strictly confidential—the public was never informed on what _actually_ happened, what this man actually did. They were left with their accusations and rumors, and the government wrapped everything up with shiny red tape and promised everything would be taken care of. Well, about three weeks later, the senator’s file went missing—the physical documents were gone, and the computer files were scrambled saving. It was another huge ordeal full of accusations. Was there an accomplice, had someone been working with him? Who else was corrupt? Or was someone trying to expose the truth? Eventually, people seemed to consensus that Flicker did this, too, when evaluating the evidence, although no one could explain _why_ , especially since none of that information was ever released.

His MO became stranger and stranger with each new case.

Four years ago—a traveling display of ancient Egyptian relics. They were warned not to come to Konoha, that things weren’t safe in Konoha. They were confident—cocky. And to their horror, and absolutely no one in Konoha’s surprise, a mummified cat, a slab of hieroglyphs, and a pharaoh’s mask suddenly vanished, never to be found again. Two more times that year he struck—a preserved two headed baby shark from a research lab—a _research lab_ —and an urn of volcanic ash from Pompeii.

Flicker went off the radar then for a whole year. There were no major cases. Nothing significant was stolen, and all petty theft was deemed under his pay grade, so to speak, or their perpetrators were apprehended.

Three years ago—what Konoha had been dreading. Konoha had a _rich_ history, and a sizable museum to show for it. An ancient founder, Madara Uchiha—yes, Uchiha like as in Itachi—was one of the most revered and mysterious historical figured in the whole city. And he had a very special, well-guarded display in their museum. That didn’t stop flicker from getting his slimy fingers on the most prized possession, a large, cello-shaped fan that belonged to Madara himself. No one, to this day, could explain how he managed to smuggle something so large and distinct, but he did.

That was far from his last hit, but it’s what wounded Konoha the deepest. It’s what made things _personal_ to a lot of people.

Needless to say, Itachi is…interested in this particular criminal. He felt like he had struck _gold_ when he realized who exactly it was that he tackled in the chaos of the shooting, because there was no one else whose mind he wanted to crack open and spread out to examine more.

Besides—he really does think that Flicker will have enough knowledge of the underground crime rings to let them know where Sarutobi and Uzumaki disappeared to. He is sure that he is involved in a larger illegal organization than just himself.

His father messages him about three hours later, while Itachi is milling between Flicker’s files and his latest write up; Fugaku has to return to the agency’s headquarters, as there is something wrong with another case they were working on out towards Suna. Itachi curses at first—they needed to settle things sooner rather than later—until a second text came in.

_I leave the case fully in your hands. You will lead the investigation and proceedings. Sasuke is your second._

Itachi absolutely _bridles_.

Fugaku is giving him full reigns on this entire case? Not only is that a testament to the faith he has in his son, but—

Itachi wanted control of this case _so bad_ and it just fell into his lap.

“Sasuke!” He barks, immediately getting up from his desk.

Sasuke pokes his head out from where he is in the kitchen. “What’s wrong?”

“Father isn’t coming.”

His brother looks incredulous. “What do you _mean_ he isn’t coming?”

“He just notified me that he is needed at the agency; he is putting us in charge.”

Sasuke gapes. “He can’t just abandon this case—this is the most important item in the entire agency!”

“Yes, and he entrusted it to _us_.” Itachi approaches him, standing calmly in front of him, eyes steady but bright. “Are you with me?”

“I….”

“Are you with me, little brother?” He repeats, voice a bit softer.

Sasuke meets his gaze for a second; his expression turns resolute. He swallows. “Yes. I’m with you.”

Itachi flashes a quick, rare grin. “Alright. Let’s wrangle a criminal and catch a kidnapper, shall we?”

\--

Itachi slaps a thick file down on the table in front of the criminal. “Have you had enough time to make up your mind?” He asks.

Flicker’s expression is dark, his mouth curling into a snarl, as he glares up at him. He is hunched, slouched in his uncomfortable plastic chair, and thick brown curls fall over his forehead, casting shadows onto his eyes. “Go to hell.”

“In due time,” Itachi replies easily, taking a seat in front of him again. “I have good news for you, master thief.”

He snorts, at the nickname or his words, Itachi isn’t sure. “Oh? And what’s that.”

“I have just been given full reign of this case.”

“And that’s good because?”

“Because I am much more gracious than the person who was in control before me.”

Flicker’s eyes darken. Gone is the joking, jovial, sarcastic criminal of confidence. He’s been pondering Itachi’s suggestion, he can tell, and Itachi knows everything was really sinking in now; he feels cornered, and no matter what he chooses, his life of sticking to the shadows will have to be put on hold. He can only imagine how much of a fish out of water he felt.

“My offer stands, Flicker, but I’m afraid there isn’t too much more time to decide.”

He shakes his head. “You’re bluffing. I’ll help you and you’ll turn me over to the cops anyways.”

“I won’t,” Itachi promises, trying to let his honestly through in his voice. He opens the manila folder in front of him, slipping out a clean white document. “A contract,” he explains, sliding it across the table. “This is signed by a judge and my lawyer. I am legally bound to abide by it.”

At this, Sasuke perks up, brows furrowing. “You already wrote up a contract?” _And got it signed by a judge?_ is the unasked question that follows.

Itachi waves a dismissive hand at him, eyes on the criminal.

Sasuke huffs.

Flicker’s eyes dart between the contract and Itachi, looking wholly untrusting.

“Are you going to look through it?”

“My hands are tied up, wise guy,” he snaps.

“Ah,” Itachi replies with a smirk, “my apologies. Sasuke, would you be kind enough to free his hands?”

Sasuke begrudgingly pushes himself away from the wall, walking over and squatting down behind the chair, withdrawing a metal key from his pocket. “These go back on the second you act up,” he warns, waving the handcuffs at him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Flicker mutters, rubbing his wrists, grimacing. His eyes flick back up to Itachi.

He inclines his head toward the document between them.

Reluctantly, as if the paper is poisoned, the thief thumbs through the packet, eyes snapping back to Itachi every now and again.

Itachi kept the fine print to a minimum, genuinely not trying to trick or corner Flicker. The man reads every word anyway, carefully, and Itachi sits in patient silence while he reads.

Sasuke is a little less patient, but that isn’t unusual.

Eventually Flicker finishes. He looks uncomfortable. He doesn’t say anything, and won’t look at Itachi anymore.

Itachi leaned back in his chair. “Sasuke, leave us for a moment.”

“What?”

“It will only be a moment,” he assures.

Sasuke is visibly unhappy, but he does stalk out of the room, begrudgingly obedient.

“What was that for?” Flicker asks, wary.

“He can be a bit brash, can he not?” Itachi leans forward, looking at the table. “Listen…Flicker. I understand the situation I’m putting you in. I understand how hard it is to willingly agree to be a snitch against people who you have allied yourself with. But this case I am working on—it goes beyond common thievery.”

“My thievery is not common.”

Itachi’s lips quirk, eyes flashing up. “That is very true. Forgive my disrespect.” He clears his throat. “People are going missing, people are dying. A ten-year-old boy was abducted from his own bed, and anyone who has tried to thus far locate him has disappeared. You were there, at the shooting—murder must be stopped, at whatever cost. I am not here to berate you for stealing, nor is this some type of punishment. I merely stumbled upon you—but I believe the knowledge you have can help me save lives, Flicker.”

The criminal stares back, contemplative and hard.

“I am offering you a chance at a fresh start. A new life, to do with whatever you please.”

His jaw flexes, nervous, as he finally breaks Itachi’s stare. “And if I like my life here?”

Itachi shrugs one shoulder. “I’m sure with all those priceless items you have—you can afford a ticket back.”

He snorts, gaze falling to the floor. “That will be real convenient for you, huh? Figure me out so you can catch me and throw me back in jail.”

Itachi turns a page in the document, settling on page seven. He quotes, “‘At no point shall it be lawful for anyone on the investigative team to question the party about previous burglaries, methods of burglary, future plans, the location of any and all stolen items, and all relating constituent questions or topics. Should this information arise at the willingness of the party, it shall not be lawful to document it as proper evidence of any past criminal record, nor shall it be lawful to use it as evidence in any future proceedings against the party. At no point shall it be lawful to create a psychological profile, profile of methodology, or behavior profile of the target. At no point shall it be lawful to record data about the party’s physical appearance, heritage, ancestry, mannerism, dialect, traits, education, or legal identification. The party will remain anonymous to all persons, including Konoha government officials, outside of the direct investigative team. Members of the investigative team cannot be legally hired to persecute the party in the future.’” Itachi turns the paper back around so that Flicker can look it over himself.

He swallows. One of his legs starts bouncing. He is silent for several minutes.

Itachi lets him contemplate in silence.

“I fucking hate you,” the thief eventually rasps; Itachi isn’t sure if it was meant to be said.

“That’s quite fair,” he replies quietly.

Flicker squeezes his eyes shut, as if he can’t believe what he is about to say. “Is this contract set in stone?”

“What do you mean? Once signed, it is legally binding until all parties dissolve it.”

“No—that’s not.” Flicker glares at the table. “Can you…edit this?”

Itachi tilts his head. “Yes, my lawyer and I can make amendments that can either change or supplement what is already here. Those amendments would have to be resigned. Which part do you take issue with?”

He shakes his head. “No—I want you to add something.”

Itachi pauses, then nods for him to continue.

“I just—look if—” He huffs, looking around. “I want the right to keep someone’s identity a secret if they aren’t involved in the—in the stuff you’re worried about.” He meets Itachi’s gaze. “Like—if I’m just using them for information? They don’t need to get involved in this because my dumbass got caught. I’ll snitch on a murderer, but—I’d gladly rot in jail on my own before dragging innocent people into this. They deserve the same anonymity I have.”

Itachi finds his use of the word ‘innocent’ very interesting. “I can have my lawyer draft an amendment for that immediately, and you can revise it. Does that sound fair?”

He nods, a little jerky.

“Very well,” Itachi says, butterflies bumping around his stomach as he produces a pen, sliding it across the table. “It appears we have a deal, then, don’t we?”

He closes his eyes one more time, before _slowly_ opening them and _slowly_ reaching for the pen. He hesitates for only a second before scribbling his name down in swift, nervous strokes. He shoves the document back to Itachi.

“Thank you,” Itachi murmurs, feeling _elated_ that he has actually been able to pull this off. He keeps his hands and face neutral as he takes the pen and signed it himself, script much more elegant and composed than the accompanying signature.

The thief lets his head fall to the table, dark brown curls spilling around him.

Itachi stands up. “I’ll be right back. I look forward to working with you…” he glances at the paper, “…Shisui.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't supposed to post this yet because I don't have enough of chapter 3 written but iuhhhhh
> 
> my cauliflower brain wants validation so 
> 
> :)
> 
> this is a lot of, like, setting up the plot and stuff. I? have never written plot before? I'm so confused as to what i'm doing. 
> 
> anyways enjoy my loves :)

Shisui’s hands are let free, and he’s given a glass of water and some snacks to eat. He glowers, but accepts them. Itachi is opening a folder, laying papers out in front of him, spreading the case out into digestible chunks.

Shisui chews on his dorritos.

“Alright, Shisui,” Itachi says, settling before him. “Would you mind giving us some information about yourself?”

“Yes,” he says, “but it was in the contract, so I guess I have to, huh?”

“That is the general nature of a contract,” is the dry reply. “Name?”

Shisui lets out a huff of air. “You already know my name.” A fact that he _hates_.

“Last name?”

“Don’t got one.”

Itachi gives him a look.

“I don’t!” He holds his hands up in surrender. “I’m a street kid. None of us had names, first or last. Never had the privilege of a family name. We named each other when we earned it.”

Itachi tilts his head. “Earned them? How did you earn them?”

Shisui levels his gaze. “None of your damn business.”

Itachi pauses. “Fair.” He clears his throat. “Birthday?”

“October nineteen.”

Itachi raises a brow. “That did not sounds confident.”

Shisui shrugs airily. “Like I said—street kid. No birth certificate. I have no idea what day I was born, or how old I really am. We earned those too.”

Itachi nods—he doesn’t know much about this ‘street kid’ culture. He would have to see if he could dig up some information about that. “How old do you say you are?”

Shisui grins, wagging a finger. “I don’t think so, mister detective. It was in the contract that you aren’t allowed to profile me.”

“I’m not,” Itachi replies, shuffling some papers. “I’m just trying to get some basic information for my own sake. I am about to hand over some very confidential information to you.”

“You could always just let me go….”

Itachi gives him a dry look. 

“Hey—it was worth a shot, right? Now,” he says with a big gust of air, smacking his hands together obnoxiously loudly to get the cheese dust off, “what’s this whole case about.”

Itachi slides a photo towards him. “This is Konohamaru Sarutobi.”

“Sarutobi like the mayor?”

“Yes. Mayor Sarutobi is this boy’s grandfather and legal guardian. He went missing almost two weeks ago. A ransom note was left demanding two million dollars.”

“Christ,” Shisui exclaims, eyebrows going into his hairline. “The mayor has that kind of money and he still lets this town be such a shithole?”

“No, Shisui, the mayor most certainly does _not_ have that kind of money. We think that the kidnappers are after something else.”

Shisui snorts. “What on earth could anyone possibly gain from such a shitheap of a town in such a shitheap of a country?”

“Power,” Itachi says, “specifically.” He pulls up another photo. “We think that they’re trying to overthrow the mayor. Having the capitol in their grasp will make taking complete control of the Fire Country easy.”

“Still think it’s a waste of goddamn effort,” Shisui mutters, eyeing the bright-eyed boy in the photo.

Itachi ignores him and pushes another photograph across the table again. This time, it shows a blonde boy, about Sasuke’s age. “Naruto Uzumaki, Konohamaru’s cousin. He became impatient a week after the disappearance and decided to play hero and go after him on his own.”

“Dumbass,” Shisui says.

“That’s what I said,” Sasuke grumbles from where he is on the back wall.

Itachi nods his head once. “Then I assume you can guess that he, too, has gone missing.”

Shisui wrinkles his nose. “You’re awfully fucking patronizing, you know that?”

Itachi blinks calmly at him. “My apologies.”

Sasuke snickers quietly in the background.

Itachi feels a headache forming.

“Look, dude, all this shit aside, how am I supposed to help you? I steal _things_ , not fucking _people_. I don’t know who took the brat.”

Itachi pulls a cellphone out of the folder and begins to scroll through it. “Perhaps, but we have some helpful clues. Uzumaki _did_ manage to get a call to his grandfather at some point. We believe that he placed this call before he was fully apprehended. It sounds like he is trying to escape.” He places the cellphone between them and presses play.

“O-old man!” Someone pants. It’s muffled, and staticky, and parts of his voice starts to cut out. “I’m in—there’s all these _people_ Old—here I had no id—I think I know where—someone—” his voice becomes overcome by static for several seconds. “—so you have to—I can—capital street—tomorrow—and—!” The call drops.

Shisui frowns.

“And, as you know, today there was a shooting on Capital Street.”

His eyes flash up. “I had nothing to do with that.”

“I fully believe you,” Itachi assures, pulling the phone back. “It simply verifies that Uzumaki did discover something he wasn’t supposed to, and that our missing persons are indeed connected to the murders. We believe he is being held captive for whatever he found out.”

“Or killed,” Shisui says bluntly. When Itachi gives him a look, he elaborates. “Look, people in the underground—they’re not _nice_ , okay? You think it’s bad up here? You have _no_ idea what it’s like down there.” He shrugs one shoulder. “If this Naruto guy really did step in some shit, they’re not gonna take the time to wash it off. They’re just gonna chop the whole leg off.”

Itachi frowns, processing his analogy. “We will not stop our investigation until we know for certain. He is to be presumed alive until we uncover a body.”

Shisui looks uninterested either way.

Itachi sets aside another photo of a man in a bulky leather jacket, silver hair slicked back in an unflattering manner. “We have reason to believe that this man is involved.”

Shisui’s expression changes immediately when he sees.

Itachi’s gaze narrows in on him. “You know this man,” he presumes.

Eventually, slowly, he shakes his head. “Not well.”

“But you’ve met him?”

Shisui stares at the photo for several more seconds. His expression is uncomfortable, as though he never wanted to see that man’s face again. “Something like that.”

“Are you going to fucking explain what you mean?”

Shisui’s eyes snap up, looking bluntly at Sasuke, clearly unamused. “I don’t know his real name. I know _of_ him and his…associate.”

Itachi is quick to snag his clipboard and pen, pen poised and eyes sharp.

Shisui grimaces, but keeps talking. “I don’t know much, okay, so don’t get mad at me if I can’t answer all of your questions. He refers to himself as the Beheader.”

“And why is that?” Itachi asks, quickly scrawling it down.

At Itachi’s glance, Shisui says, dry as a desert, “the guy is known for beheading people.”

“Ah,” Itachi says quietly.

Shisui snorts. “Aren’t you supposed to be a genius or something? You’re really letting me down, mister detective.”

Itachi ignores his jibing, but he can feel Sasuke bristling behind him.

“No one really calls him that, though; only sarcastically, at least,” Shisui continues, nonchalant.

“What do people call him, then, if not Beheader?”

“Headless. It’s more of a…condescending name for him.”

Sasuke walks forward, snagging the picture and scrutinizing it. “People are brave enough to condescend someone that goes around decapitating people?”

Shisui shrugs again, looking entirely unbothered. “Like I said, I don’t know him. But from what I’ve heard…he’s kind of a world class dick head.”

Sasuke raises an eyebrow.

Itachi quickly notes that ‘Headless’ has an ‘unpleasant nature.’ “Is there anything else you know about him?”

“Not a whole lot. Just that I don’t want to cross him. He has an associate—they call him Zombie.”

Sasuke snorts.

“What do you mean by associate?” Itachi asks immediately. “Are they partners?”

Shisui wrinkles his face a little bit. “The underground doesn’t work quite like that. No one is…really allied, save for a few people on the very outskirts. People do work together for short term personal gain, although those allegiances usually end…poorly.”

Itachi asks for more with his eyes.

“They kill each other.”

“Sounds like you all are a really amicable bunch,” Sasuke mutters, throwing the picture back down. “What do you know about his boyfriend?”

Itachi rolls his eyes.

“Zombie? ‘Rumor’ has it that he’s always been there. Since the beginning of the underground. No way that’s true— _I_ think that he just picked up someone’s schtick so he could get their credibility. He’s got, like, stitches all over his face and body. People say he’s just pieces of the different people he’s killed.”

Itachi very hesitantly asks, “Is he?”

“ _No_ , Itachi, it’s the underground, not a fucking magical realm. You really _are_ fucking dense.” He crosses his arms. “I’ve never even met him, keep that in mind, yea?”

Itachi nods easily, scribbling something else down.

“The underground sounds like a fucking middle school playground,” Sasuke scoffs. “Rumor this, and rumor that, codenames, scary stories.”

Shisui fixes him with a very steely glare. “You can joke about it all you want, brat, but it’s no place to fuck around with. You wouldn’t last a damn minute.”

“That’s enough,” Itachi says, and his voice holds so much authority, low and deep and commanding, that Shisui closes his mouth. Sasuke does similarly, sulking back to the sidelines.

Itachi continues as if nothing happened. “So, you’ve met—Headless?”

Shisui doesn’t look cheery anymore. He glares up from under his eyelashes. “Only once.”

Itachi tilts his head, bangs swaying next to his face. “And can you go into some detail about that, please?”

Shisui looks like he would love to do anything but that. “Someone I…know….” He stops talking, lips going tight.

“Don’t forget our agreement,” Itachi prompts gently, “that no one you speak of will be compromised.”

Shisui licks his lips. “She’s—she’s a trafficker.”

“Of what?”

Shisui shrugs. “Anything that can be trafficked, I guess. I tried not to get too involved.”

“And this woman knows Headless?”

“I think so. I’m not sure how, or why but….” He grimaces, like coughing up information is bringing shards of glass up his throat with it. “I needed help from this girl—”

“Does she have a codename?”

“Smuggler,” Shisui answers bluntly. “I needed her to move something for me. She’s a little…deeper into the heart of the underground, deeper than I like to go. But I met her and—I ran into him. I had heard of him— _everyone_ has fucking heard of the crazy German motherfucker with a scythe. I wasn’t hoping to ever confront him.” He rubs a hand over his nose. “He’s got a fucking—crazy look in his eyes. I’ve never seen anything like it before.” He meets Itachi’s gaze. “This guy is fucking _insane,_ Itachi. There’s something wrong with him. You do not want to get caught up with him.”

Itachi keeps his face neutral, but he feels unsettled. He glances back down at the photo.

“Why do you think he’s involved?”

Itachi looks back up. “This photograph was pulled from traffic cam footage outside of the Mayor’s estate. Eyewitnesses say they spotted someone matching his description outside of City Hall.”

Shisui’s frowning, now, eyebrows pinched. “That…this guy,” he pokes a finger on the photograph, “this fucker doesn’t mess with petty crime like kidnapping. There’s no way he was hired to kidnap the kid.”

Sasuke comes back up to the table to stand beside his brother. “What would he be there for, then?”

“To _kill_ ,” Shisui says, voice tight. “That’s what I’m tryna say, man. He doesn’t take people alive. He’s one of the most notorious fucking mercenaries around. Even the _real_ bad guys don’t wanna fucking mess with him.” He looks fidgety, like he’s nervous.

Itachi thinks it’s fair, since he’s ratting on what sounds like a rather…unstable man.

“Whoever kidnapped the kid, it wasn’t him. No one would ever hire him for that—he’s not exactly subtle.”

Itachi looks contemplative. “Sasuke—speak with the coroner and local police forces, get me a detailed list of everyone who died in the city that day. We can cross reference when we go to the morgue tomorrow.”

Interested, Shisui asks, “you’re going to the morgue tomorrow?”

“Mm,” Itachi replies, gathering some of the papers. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Not any of my business? Well that’s fucking rude,” Shisui grumbles. “You wrangled me into this just to keep me in the dark?” He almost physically lashes out when Sasuke approaches his side, snapping one handcuff around his right wrist and the other around the metal bar of the chair.

“You will know exactly what we want you to know and nothing more,” Sasuke bites.

“I don’t take orders, brat,” Shisui snaps back.

Sasuke looks at him for a moment, and then just smirks. “We’ll see about that.” And with that, he follows his brother out of the room and lets the door slam shut.

Frustrated, Shisui yanks on the chain of the handcuff, and then kicks the leg of the table.

“God fucking damn it.”

\--

“When will you quit that habit?” Itachi mutters, casting Sasuke a disapproving glance from behind his black sunglasses.

Sasuke lets out a breath, smoke curling past his lips. He doesn’t reply; instead, he cheekily offers Itachi a drag.

Itachi wrinkles his nose.

“Asthmatic little bitch,” Sasuke says under his breath.

Itachi and Sasuke’s back and forth about Sasuke’s smoking habits has been a long running spat—Itachi is starkly against it, Sasuke can’t be bothered to care, no matter how many images of black, tar-lined lungs Itachi shoves under his nose.

Their shoes make soft noises as they walk across the black top parking lot toward the morgue.

Itachi hates morgues. He hates funeral homes. He hates coroners’ offices and everything of the like. Too many painful memories, from a time Sasuke was too young to remember. Too many little pieces, little glimpses of her body, her manicured nails, her long black hair, unnaturally matted with a sickly red clots.

Sasuke doesn’t remember anything. Itachi is grateful for that everyday.

Sasuke tosses his cig in a trashcan outside the entrance and fishes a small tin of Altoids from his pocket. “After you,” he murmurs to Itachi, nodding to the door.

It’s cold inside. It smells sterile, alcohol and formaldehyde and latex and it makes Itachi’s skin crawl. They’re greeted by a receptionist—what a job, Itachi thinks—who assures them that the coroner will be with them shortly. She invites them to sit; they both decline in favor of standing.

Sasuke is getting fidgety when the coroner finally greets them.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” he says in an amicable voice. “How are you doing today?”

“We are both well,” Itachi replies, turning from his brother and reaching forward to shake the man’s hand. “And you?”

“Quite well, thank you. My name is Kabuto Yakushi. I hope I will be able to assist you today.” He has cornsilk blonde hair, long and drawn back in a pony tail.

Itachi knows he isn’t one to talk, but somehow that doesn’t seem regulation for his line of work.

“We only have a few questions, Doctor Yakushi,” Itachi says, “and then we will be out of your way.”

Kabuto waves a dismissive hand behind him as he leads them through the entrance and deeper into the morgue. “Please, no worries. I am more than happy to assist you.”

He takes them down a hallway, each wall lined with metal doors.

Itachi tells himself that he has no reason to suddenly feel wary.

Kabuto opens a door near the end of the hallways and motions for Itachi and Sasuke to enter. The interior is crisp, organized. There are two bodies covered in medical sheets, stainless steel tables and sinks, and a whole array of medical equipment, including a skull saw.

“Sick,” Sasuke murmurs under his breath when he sees it, and Itachi gives him a dark glare.

Kabuto moves to the far end of the room and begins to unwrap one of the bodies. “From what I have gathered, gentlemen, there is nothing connecting the two victims, but you are welcome to all of my findings.”

Itachi steps forward first, Sasuke falling in step behind him.

Itachi’s heart sinks a little when he sees the body.

He’s _young_. Itachi guesses that he’s in his early thirties, barely any older than him. He has natural red hair, a little overgrown, an orange mess against the dull metal table. The sheet is only drawn down to his chest, to expose the bullet wound that rips through his skin, but Itachi can tell that he’s a large man, muscled shoulders and thick neck giving him away.

“This is Russel Gilligan,” Kabuto says, lifting a clipboard and turning one page. “Thirty-one years old, no children, unknown parents. He worked at Paws and Whiskers on Chestnut Street. Irish by heritage, but has never filed for a passport, so he’s never left Konoha.”

“At least not legally,” Itachi murmurs, eyeing the bullet hole. “This looks like a well-placed shot.”

Kabuto hums. “Good eye. The bullet penetrated his heart and his left lung. He died very quickly.”

Itachi keeps his gaze on the wound for a few more seconds. “Is there anything you can tell us about the body? Anything that would indicate this was a hit?”

“Not particularly. The man has several scars, but there’s no way to know what they came from. I tested his blood—he was quite healthy, and had no foreign substances or narcotics in him when he died.” Kabuto sets the clipboard down and moves to the other table. “That is not the case for our victim number two.”

Itachi reluctantly pulls away from the first body and walks to Kabuto’s side. His jaw clenches as the coroner removes the sheet.

She can’t be any older than Sasuke. She might even be younger, the piercings through her nose, lip, and eyebrow aging her. Her long, choppy hair is unkempt and died a clearly fake fire alarm red. Kabuto pulls the sheet down farther, exposing two silver nipple rings and three gnarly bullet wounds, one between her breasts, and two over her abdomen.

“Jessika Shelton,” Kabuto begins with no fanfare. “Twenty-years old, attended Konoha Community College. Her mother is in prison and her father no longer lives in the country. She has no siblings. Her wallet held several ticket stubs to raves and EDM concerts.”

Itachi nods once.

“She had a mix of LSD, marijuana, Xanax, and cocaine in her system when she died.”

“Christ, how could she even stand up?” Sasuke asks.

“Drugs linger in the body for sometimes weeks after consumption. She was likely not intoxicated by any of the substances during the event.”

Itachi hasn’t taken his eyes off of the wounds. “Three bullets,” he murmurs. He raises a finger, tracing a pattern over them in the air. “Three bullets, none aimed over her heart. Why?”

Kabuto gives him a quizzical look. He shrugs one shoulder. “It was a random shooting, Mister Uchiha. I doubt anyone was being overly careful about their aim.”

“Yet he was shot perfectly,” Sasuke rebuts, jerking his head toward Russel Gilligan. “You’re saying it was dumb luck?”

“If I may, then yes, gentlemen, it was luck. It would certainly not be the first time I saw a man who fell to gang violence have nearly perfectly placed wounds from a haywire shootout. The human body is only so big—there’s a good chance you will hit something vital.”

Itachi presses his lips together. “Alright,” he concedes, stepping back from the table. “May we get copies of their profiles?”

“Of course,” Kabuto agrees easily, giving a smile that Itachi immediately deems uncomfortable. “I can fax it to your office.”

“Thank you for your time,” Itachi murmurs, ready to get out of the suffocating room and away from the dead.

“It was no burden at all,” Kabuto assures easily.

Itachi pulls a tiny notebook from his pocket and neatly writes down his fax number. He hands the slip to Kabuto, who tucks it into his lab coat pocket. The collar moves a bit, and Itachi catches a glimpse of a silver necklace—a thin chain and a tiny, coiled snake pendant.

“Let me know if there’s anything else I can do for you two.”

Itachi and Sasuke ask only a few more questions, but there’s really nothing substantial Kabuto can answer them. They leave shortly after.

“That guy was fucking whack,” Sasuke bites the moment they’re back outside the building. It feels like a physical relief, to be out of that place, away from the creepy coroner and the dead bodies, unnaturally frozen in their rot.

“He willingly works with corpses, little brother, what did you expect?”

“What are the odds he’s fucked one of them?” Sasuke asks, drawing another cigarette from his pocket.

Itachi snorts.

“Have you seen that story, from twitter?”

Itachi raises an eyebrow, looking up from checking his phone to cast Sasuke a glance. “Because I have a twitter account.”

Sasuke ignores the sarcasm, flicking his lighter a few times to get it to spark. It’s an old piece of shit he only keeps for sentimental reasons. “This girl hooks up with some dude from Tinder, right? They fuck, he comes on her chest—” he blows smoke in Itachi’s face when he grimaces at the crude wording, “—and she wakes up with a weird rash. Right?”

“Right,” Itachi drawls, checking his messages, getting the hint that Sasuke wants audience participation.

“So she goes to the doctor. Thinks she’s got an STD. The doctor says that she’s been infected with a parasite that you can only get from either fucking animals or fucking dead bodies.”

“Odd.”

“Well, she googles the guy, and guess where he works?”

“We’re going to go with, ‘what is a morgue?’”

Sasuke snickers. “Bingo. Can you fucking imagine? Bitch is eskimo sisters with a goddamn _corpse,_ Itachi.”

“Unfortunate.”

Sasuke snorts, inhaling deeply and turning his head to the side to puff out.

Itachi is fishing for his keys in his pocket as they arrive at his car. He casts Sasuke a glance. “I’m not unlocking until you put that out.”

Sasuke rolls his eyes, but complies, dropping it to the floor and stepping on it, stamping out the smoldering tip. He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks back up at his brother. “What?” He snaps, not fond of the look Itachi is giving him.

“We don’t litter in this family, sweet brother.”

Sasuke mutters, “You should eat shit, sometime,” and he bends down to retrieve the cigarette butt.

Itachi grants him entry into his car, finally, and they settle into the dark interior and close the doors. Itachi adjusts the air conditioning, turns the stereo on to whatever Sasuke has playing from Bluetooth. The cars quiet engine hums to life underneath of them. Gravel crunches under the tires.

Neither of them addresses what a failure the day was for them.

Itachi speaks up first. “Go to the pet store, check in with the other coworkers and see if there’s anything about Gilligan that could make him a target. Get whatever information on him you can. We’re not letting any detail go undocumented, just in case.”

Sasuke nods, making a few notes on his phone. “I’ll try some cross referencing in Shikamaru’s database and see if I can find any family.”

“Good,” Itachi approves. “I want you to go to the University and get as much information about Shelton as possible. Find her friends, figure out what parties she goes to, who her dealers are, all of it. She’s the most likely to be connected.”

Sasuke nods again.

Again, neither of them addresses that they’re grasping at straws.

\--

“Shikamaru,” comes the lazy drawl through the telephone.

“Yo,” Sasuke says, cradling his phone between his cheek and his shoulder. “I got something for you.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Two names,” Sasuke begins, peeling through the files the coroner faxed over. “Jessika Shelton—that’s with a ‘K’—and Russel Gilligan.”

“Like the Island?”

Sasuke rolls his eyes. “Yes Shikamaru, you fuck.”

“You’re awfully rude to someone who provides for you vital information.”

“You’re awfully lazy for someone who gets paid better than anyone if the entire damn firm.”

There’s a yawn. “I’ll get back with you on these names.”

Sasuke mutters something unpleasant under his breath as he hangs up the phone. He climbs out of his car, resisting the urge to light up, pushing his sunglasses down over his eyes.

It’s a big campus, surprisingly nice for a community college. Sasuke sticks out like a sore thumb, black pants and shirt and jacket, dark sunglasses, perpetual scowl. He’s the same age as a lot of the students, and they give him odd looks as he strides across campus, but he ignores them.

He reaches the administrative building without having to ask for directions, thankfully.

The office is cold inside—surprisingly so, given the dropping temperature—and smells vaguely of pine, which Sasuke does not care for. The receptionist is a middle aged women, face fat and sagging, who looks entirely over the shit that is university administration.

“May I help you?” She asks, only barely looking up from her computer.

Sasuke slides his shades over his hair to the top of his head, bangs temporarily pushed away from his forehead. He produces his badge from his back pocket. “I’m here to investigate the death of one of your students, Jessika Shelton.”

The receptionist—Mrs. Jopson, Sasuke notes from the plaque on her desk—frowns, finally directing her attention away from the computer. “Oh. Yes. Poor girl, so young.”

“Yes,” Sasuke echoes blandly, uninterested in small talk. “I would like to speak to her professors, if that’s alright.”

“Of course, Mr.…Uchiha,” she replies, eyes scanning his badge. “Let me print out her class schedule for you.”

Sasuke fiddles with a cigarette in his pocket while he waits. He feels like he doesn’t have anything to do, like his hands are too free, his lips too cold. Eventually Mrs. Jopson hands him a schedule and a campus map. He thanks her and slips out of the building, eyes scanning the map.

The first professor he approaches is a Dr. Anderson, who teaches college algebra. Due to the large class size, he offers almost no information about her; he has no clue about Shelton besides the fact that she was chronically late and an underachiever. He moves onto the arts department next. The professor for World Cinema is an old man with a thick Moroccan accent and a salt and pepper beard. His only comments are that Shelton seemed ‘spacy’ in class and didn’t contribute much to class discussions, and she made average marks. Sasuke thanks him somewhat dryly.

The third stop is finally helpful.

Class is in session when he enters the Human Sociology lecture hall. It’s a smaller class size than the others. He stands in the back of the room, looking down over the students, pressed against the wall. The professor notices him with a curious tilt of his head. After finishing his thought, he writes something on the board with a broken piece of chalk and instructs the students to discuss amongst their groups for a minute. He makes his way to the back of the room.

“Dr. Umino,” he introduces, reaching a hand out as he approaches Sasuke.

“Sasuke Uchiha,” he answers shaking his hand once, grip firm.

“How can I help you, Mr. Uchiha?”

“I’m investigating the death of Jessika Shelton,” Sasuke explains, removing his sunglasses again. “I came to meet her professors and classmates.”

“Ah,” Professor Umino says sadly, eyes dropping. “Yes, I heard the terrible news. Anything you need, detective, I’m happy to help her get justice.”

Sasuke internally smirks at being called ‘detective,’ but doesn’t let it slow him down. He needs his smoke. “Was Jessika a socially active girl? Did she have many friends—or possibly enemies?”

Umino looks alarmed. “Enemies? Oh, no, I doubt it. At least—to the point of murder? No, no,” he mutters, rubbing a hand over his wrinkled forehead, “I can’t think of anyone who would want to hurt her.”

“What can you tell me about her?”

“Well—she was a fireball of a girl. Very hot headed and opinionated. Really passionate about her studies, too.”

This piques Sasuke’s interest—that was the opposite of what the other professors said. “She was a good student?”

“Oh, one of my best,” Umino says, smiling, eyes sad. “An interest in sociology seemed to run in her blood. She was so vocal for standing up for the oppressed, for the ones who weren’t always heard when they tried to speak up for themselves.” He laughed a little. “So many times I tried to convince her to change her major, but she was insistent on journalism, for whatever reason.”

Sasuke taps out a few notes into his phone. “Did she have close friends in this class?”

“Yes, there are a few girls—actually, would you like to speak to them?”

Sasuke nods. “That would be very helpful, Doctor, thank you.”

The professor goes back up to the front of the class, then, clapping twice to gather the attention of his murmuring students. “Alright, class, I’m going to let you out early today.” There’s an excited rumble, and he holds up his hand. “Ah, yes, yes, I know. To make up for it—listen, class,” he says patiently,  “to make up for it, you need to read the rest of chapter 17 on your own. Answer the questions on page…” he checks his book, “…223 on your own so that we can continue our discussion on Thursday.” He leans against his desk. “Ino, Sakura, Hinata—can you three stay behind for a moment, please?”

The three girls in question pause in their packing, glancing at each other.

Sasuke waits until the classroom is cleared before approaching them. “Good afternoon, ladies,” he says.

One of the girls, blue eyed and blonde haired, bites her lips when she gets a good look at him. “Why, hello there,” she says.

Another one, strawberry blonde with a pink ombre, elbows her.

Umino sighs. “Ladies, this is detective Uchiha. He has some questions for you about Jessika.”

“Oh,” the girl says, immediately sobering up. “Oh.”

“My name is Sakura,” says the second one, holding out a hand. “This is Ino and Hinata.”

“You three were good friends of Miss Shelton?” He shakes each of their hands.

“Well,” Ino replies, “better than anyone else, probably. But we weren’t super close or anything.”

Sasuke quirks an eyebrow.

“She really kept to herself,” Sakura explains. “She didn’t really mingle with anyone.”

“How often did you spend time together?”

“Not terribly often,” Sakura says, looking to Ino for confirmation, who nods. “I mean—the four of us got put together for a group project, and we traded numbers and stuff. We talked occasionally, but—I don’t know, she was never that open. She hardly ever talked about herself.”

“Do you think she was hiding something?”

“Hiding?” Ino frowns. “I mean—” She presses her lips together.

Sasuke glances between the three of them. “Ladies, everything I can gather will only help us bring the person who hurt her to justice. Please don’t hesitate to tell me anything you know.”

“Well,” Ino looks a little guilty. “She was a pretty big druggie.”

Sasuke _knew_ that.

“She was real big in the rave scene, too, and I think that made it worse,” Sakura says. “That’s why I stopped hanging out with her outside of class, at least. I mean—she never wanted to do anything but get high. Which is fine!” Sakura defends, holding her hands out. “I mean, I never cared, she could do what she wanted, but I just didn’t want to get caught up in it.”

“Is possible she had any enemies? A dispute with a dealer, was she involved in any criminal activity that could have backfired, anything like that?” Sasuke asks.

“I don’t know where she got the drugs,” Sakura says.

Ino nods in agreement. “Me neither. She stopped offering if we wanted to get high with her, eventually. But she was high…most of the time, I think.”

“But you don’t know of any trouble she got into?”

“No,” Sakura says, shaking her head.

Saskuke is writing something down in his phone when—

“Well, there was—” Hinata, an Asian girl with long, thick black hair, speaks up for the first time. “There was that boy.”

“Boy?” Sasuke’s eyes snap from the other two girls to her. “What boy?”

Sakura and Ino look equally confused.

“Don’t you remember?” Hinata prompts, voice small. “At spring festival? She was arguing with that boy.”

“Oh,” Ino says, frowning. “I mean—yeah, I guess, but that was probably just her ex.”

“Her ex,” Sasuke repeats, frowning. “Do you know who he is?”

Sakura shakes her head. “We don’t know anything about that, not really. Earlier this year, at the spring concert the school throws, this guy showed up. He seemed real…tense. Upset about something. He was trying to get her to leave, I think. I don’t know.” She looks at Ino. “We weren’t in earshot.”

“The only thing I heard was ‘can’t see you here’ and she kept telling him to go away,” Ino adds. “Jessika was really agitated after that. She got super high—I don’t even know what she was on the second half of that day.”

“And she didn’t say who he was?”

“Nope.” Ino shrugs. “We just assumed he was an ex who wasn’t leaving her alone. Not the first person who I’ve seen that with. She told us not to worry about it, to ignore that we saw him. So I did.”

“Like we said,” Sakura adds, almost looking guilty, “she was a really private girl. That’s kind of how our relationship worked—we just left her personal stuff alone. We never pried. It seemed best that way.”

Sasuke stares at his phone for a second. “Hm. Can you tell me what this boy looked like?”

“ _Albino_ ,” Sakura answers immediately.

“Palest kid I’ve ever seen,” Ino agrees. “Just think _white_ and you probably have a good idea what he looked like.”

Sasuke’s eyes flick between them; they all seem earnest, though, so he assumes that they’re telling the truth as best as they can. “Alright,” he says. “Thank you very much for your help, ladies.”

He turns to leave, and Ino pipes up again. “Ah, detective! Are you sure you don’t want to leave us your card, or anything? In case we remember something and need to get a hold of you.”

Sasuke gives her a dry look. He puts his sunglasses back in front of his eyes. “That won’t be necessary. Good day to you three. If you’ll excuse me.” He nods at the professor before he leaves.

He ignores the glares he gets as he lights a cigarette, stalking across campus.

Unlike his brother, he doesn’t care if his car smells like smoke, so he doesn’t bother putting it out as he climbs in and closes the door behind him. He blows smoke out the window as he dials Itachi’s number.

“Sasuke,” he answers, and Sasuke tries to ignore how warm his voice sounds, as always.

“Hey,” he replies, taking another drag. “I did your errands.”

Itachi chuckles. “Thank you, brother. Anything useful?”

“Not much on Russel. Stopped by the pet store—coworkers had nothing significant to say about him but that he volunteered at a vet clinic.”

“Did you go there?”

“Fucking _obviously_.” Sasuke puffs out another breath of smoke. “They didn’t have anything for me. Some random shit, I’ll upload it all to our database when I get back.” He taps the cigarette outside of the car window, letting ash fall to the blacktop. “We may have a person of interest for Jessika, though.”

“Oh?” Itachi’s chair moves on the other end of the line. “What did you find.”

“Apparently there was a man who had a small altercation with her in public earlier this year. Unfortunately I only have a description, but Shikamaru is working on her as we speak. Hopefully he’ll get something.”

“Hm. Hopefully.”

“I know it’s not a lot,” Sasuke grumbles, “but it’s better than nothing.”

“Indeed.”

“What about _you_?” He asks. A little scathing, “What has your little _thief_ gotten for you?”

Itachi snorts. “I haven’t had him do too much today. I’m still trying to work out sleeping arrangements for him.”

“Let him sleep on the floor.”

“I’m not too keen on that.”

“I’m not to keen on bargaining with criminals. Didn’t think you were either.” He blows more smoke.

“It’s not a bargain if I set all the terms.”

“Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night,” Sasuke mutters. “I’ll see you back at home?”

Itachi hums. “Of course. Drive safe.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sasuke mumbles, hanging up without saying goodbye.

He finishes his cigarette, windows of his car open, enjoying the crisp air outside with the heat in his lungs.

He starts his car and—not without his brother’s nagging voice in the back of his head—tosses his cigarette out the window and drives off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the literal only reason sasuke smokes is because i just re binge watched narcos and smoking is such amazing scene fodder? like it's just so convenient to have characters smoke
> 
> also itachi really does have asthma in this. because he has to be a little sick but there's no terminal illness here, baby. 
> 
> there's more development with the bros and their relationship and their family and STUFF 
> 
> there's more development with shisui too :) my SON :) 
> 
> I would really love to hear your guys opinons as to what you think is going on and stuff but I'm also nervous that this whole thing is way too fucking obvious and predictable because i am a FISH OUT OF WATER RN 
> 
> love each of you for reading my stuff :') actually means the world to me :')
> 
> for all those who partake I hope you had a lovely thanksgiving and filled that mf PLATE and I'll see you again soon :')
> 
> PS i LOVE COMMENTS :))))) keeps this heart beating
> 
> okay bye!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi i didn't read this before posting it feel free to slap me for every typo and error :)
> 
> i need to stop posting in the middle of the night but oh well
> 
> I'm gently nudging the plot forward
> 
> how much do these two fuckers have to like, interact before they're in love? i'm so bad at this 
> 
> Izumi makes her debut this chapter! not sure exactly how important she is going to be yet but I hope you like her :)
> 
> I tried to develop Sasuke a little more in this. and his bro bond with his bro. adjfhalkdsfaskjdfa. 
> 
> enjoy the chapter, lights of my life <3

“ _This is unprecedented, absurd, reckless—!”_

“Yes, Father, but—”

“ _There is no ‘but’ to this, Itachi! What were you thinking!? What on Earth would compel you to think that this was appropriate action to take?”_

Itachi shifts. “Father, I carefully considered all options and—”

“ _And you deliberately chose the most unintuitive, childish one? This is not a game, son, and I cannot fathom why you are treating it like one.”_

“I assure you I am treating this with all seriousness,” he replies through a tight jaw. “I know I have chosen an unconventional method, but—”

_“You have chosen a method that puts the entire namesake of this firm in jeopardy!”_

Itachi casts his gaze to the ground. “And I would not make such a risky decision unless I was completely confident in the outcome.”

“ _You are foolish. You are still just a foolish child.”_

Itachi clenches his jaw, gaze fixed. “The mayor has approved of—”

“ _I don’t give a damn what the mayor thinks! He’s hiring us to make wise decisions, not play charades with seasoned criminals!_ ”

Itachi doesn’t say anything.

“ _You_ will _see this through to fruition, and all negative consequences will be yours to pay.”_

“Yes, Father.”

“ _I cannot believe this. I cannot believe this!”_

He closes his eyes. He is used to his father’s berating. He is used to never being enough. But nothing can stop the way he is punched in the gut when his father says—

“ _What would your mother think of you now, Itachi?”_

He cannot collect his thoughts or his breath before his father hangs the phone up.

\--

Sasuke taps his cigarette on the ash tray, watching the blackened tip fall off. He brings it back to his lips, inhaling deep, feeling the warmth in his lungs, when a girl sits down in the chair across the table from him. She has brown hair, lots of freckles, and dark rimmed glasses.

“Sasuke Uchiha?” She asks, pulling her beanie down over her ears.

He grunts his affirmation, rubbing out his cigarette—Itachi taught him to be that polite, at least. “Carolyn?” He asks.

“Yeah,” she says, “it’s me. Thanks for meeting me.”

“I should be the one thanking you if you have valuable information for me.”

“I might.” Carolyn shifts a little. “What…is going on with this investigation, anyways?” She asks.

Sasuke raises an eyebrow, sitting back and crossing his arms. “You do realize that I’m the one asking questions, right?”

With a wrinkle of her nose, she says, “It just makes me a little nervous, you know? Russel always was a strange one—and then he turns up dead, and then _you_ show up, asking all these questions. Who am I going to get in trouble with by talking about these things?”

Sasuke frowns. “You think you’re going to get in trouble with someone?”

“I don’t know.” She huffs a little. “It’s just odd.”

“Why don’t you start explaining what’s odd.”

She looks up from under her glasses. “I don’t want me or my clinic to get in trouble for what I’m going to tell you.”

Sasuke glances over her critically.

“Just don’t report us to the police.”

He considers. “I will tentatively agree to that.”

She huffs a little, seeming dissatisfied with his response, or perhaps she was already affected by his attitude. “You said that Paws and Whiskers told you that Russel volunteered at the vet clinic, right?”

“Right.”

“Well—I’m a vet tech that works there.” She fidgets with her scarf. “The truth is—he wasn’t a volunteer.”

Sasuke leans forward. “Explain.”

“Russel was there…to be treated.” She looks guilty as she says it.

“Treated?”

“It’s illegal, obviously,” she continues, “so we had to be real down low about it.”

“What was Russel getting treated for?”

She frowns at the table, shaking her head a little. “Flesh wounds, mostly. Sometimes broken bones. Very rarely did he have any internal bleeding or anything.”

Sasuke looks more troubled by the minute. “What types of flesh wounds did he have? Why did he have them?”

“Bruises and gashes. Cuts…just all over his body.” She shivers, and Sasuke doubts it’s from the crisp autumn air. “I don’t know why he had them. He very rarely spoke, and I never asked. The marks were clean, like they were dealt by weapons, humans—animal bites and scratches are more jagged—and his bruises were blunt and broad.”

Sasuke stares at the table. “Like he was getting attacked.”

“Right? That’s what I thought, too.” She shifts. “Russel was always so… _kind_ , though. I can’t imagine who would have been trying to hurt him. He loved talking to the inpatient animals while he waited, and he was surprisingly gentle for how strong he looked.” She looks sad. “He especially liked the birds.”

Sasuke isn’t interested in what his favorite animals were.

“Why did he say he was there.”

She shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t know. I never asked him about it. I never talked to him at all, really, outside of small talk and such. Doctor Mackenelly handled all of that—he just told me to keep quiet.”

Sasuke levels his gaze, itching for another cigarette. “I’m going to have to question him, you realize that, right?”

Carolyn tugs at her beanie again, expression unhappy. “You said you wouldn’t try to get our clinic in trouble.”

“I never said that,” Sasuke corrects. He takes a sip from his coffee and grimaces—it’s grown cold. “And I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble.”

“But if you tell Doctor—”

“You do realize that two people were _murdered_ , don’t you, Carolyn? And you have just informed me that one of those victims has been involved in some sort of violent activity for—how long were you treating him?”

She sighs, examining the frayed ends of her scarf. “I don’t exactly know. I found out a couple of months ago when I started picking up the night shift to watch the impatient animals. That’s when Russel would come in, since the clinic was closed. Most of the time it was only Doctor Mac and me.”

“But you think that he’d been there before then.”

“I think so? He seemed familiar with the place. He seemed to know Doctor Mac on a relatively friendly matter, so either he knew him outside of, er, work, or it wasn’t his first time having to get treatment there.” She hesitates. “He was scarred, too. Even if he hadn’t been treated at our clinic the whole time, something was definitely hurting him long before I met him.”

Sasuke taps a ringed finger against his coffee cup.

“Interesting,” is all he ends up saying, squinting off to the side as he thinks.

“That’s what I thought,” Carolyn says gently, voice a little small. “I feel so bad, detective, I should have said something earlier. I shouldn’t have kept quiet for so long, I knew something bad was happening to him, if I had said something maybe Russel wouldn’t have….”

He regards her critically for a long moment before a nagging voice in his head—no, it doesn’t sound like a certain older brother _at all_ —tells him to be compassionate.

“It wasn’t your fault. Odds are nothing you could have done would have prevented this.”

It’s the best he can do to be comforting.

“But something _is_ sketchy, right? Like, it’s not just me being paranoid?” She frowns. “I mean, for some reason he was getting injured, and for some reason he couldn’t go to the hospital about it. That’s _sketchy_ , right?”

“Yeah,” Sasuke agrees, twisting his coffee cup on the café table, “that’s sketchy.”

\--

Something is _up_.

Shisui isn’t sure what. He’s been sitting in his little cell all day. At some point in the day, Sasuke came in and threw an iPod touch at him. It had all wireless communication disabled, but it was loaded with games, and Shisui currently had the date cranked about a month forward from repeatedly getting his candy crush lives back without waiting.

Itachi hasn’t come in to question him all day. He popped in once to deliver him food and water and he seemed…hollow. Like a ghost of a person, like something had come in and scooped him dry and his shell was just rotting.

He contained it well. Really, really well, and Shisui wouldn’t have known that anything was different about his prickly, asshole attitude if he wasn’t so good at reading people.

He drums his fingers against the table. He’s bored out of his mind, mostly. The games keep him entertained a little bit, yeah, but Shisui is no dolt. He’s made a career out of outsmarting highly trained security officials and weaseling his way through top of the line security systems. Swiping his thumb across a screen just wasn’t doing it for him anymore.

His gut instinct is that the kid turned up dead, or something. That would throw a real wrench in the operation—probably enough to get Itachi’s panties in a bunch like they were.

Shisui doesn’t think that it’s quite fair, really, that he’s such a key component of the dickhead brothers’ little investigation and yet he doesn’t get to actually _know_ anything.

The thing is—Shisui can tell that, while they may be plenty intelligent, Itachi and Sasuke are dipshits when it comes to street smarts. They don’t understand the inner workings of the underground, they don’t understand the extent of the criminal empire that quite literally lies beneath their feet. They’re fully and completely ignorant to the very field they are working with.

And Shisui can’t blame them. It’s a secret for a reason—how would they know? Shisui is a master when it comes to keeping things hidden. Normally, he wouldn’t care that they are going to just blindly stumble around the underground.

But now he’s so aggravatingly _involved_. The longer the two of them take fucking around, the longer he’s stuck watching them from the sidelines. The longer he’s trapped in a cage like an experiment. The longer his legacy is tarnished.

And that is the catalyst thought that gets him to start yelling at the door.

“Hello-oo!” He calls, slumped in his chair. “Anyone out there?”

No answer.

“I’m bored. Hello! I said I’m bored!”

No answer.

“C’mon,” he calls again, “I can get a lot fuckin’ louder than this, pretty boy! I know you’re listening.”

 _No answer_.

Shisui purses his lips, thinking, staring at the cold metal surface of the table in front of him.

“Oh baby youuu,” he croons, as loud as he can, “got what I neeeed!” He starts drumming his hands on the table. “But you say he’s just a friend—but you say he’s just a friend!” He takes in the biggest breath he can. “ _Oh_ baby yoouuuu—”

The door slams against the wall, and Itachi’s impatient face appears in the doorway.

“ _What_ ,” he says, jaw tense, “do you _want_.”

Shisui smirks. “I’m bored. Weren’t you listening?”

Itachi just stares.

“I mean, obviously you were, if you came.” He smiles cheekily.

Itachi pinches the bridge of his nose. “I really cannot do this today, Shisui.”

“Then occupy me,” he retorts.

Itachi raises an eyebrow in question.

“Give me something to do, man! You’ve got me holed up like a fucking lab rat. I thought you recruited me for my unmatched criminal expertise? Why the fuck am I just sitting here, then?”

Itachi eyes him for a second. He steps fully into the room, letting the door close behind him, and crosses his arms. “Forgive me if I’m not eager to hand over sensitive information to someone like you,” he says, leaning against the wall.

“You’re not forgiven,” Shisui replies, wrinkling his nose. “’Someone like me?’ Goddamn, dude, that’s cold.”

Itachi just shrugs.

“Why did you bother getting me involved in this if you aren’t going to fucking let me _do_ anything, huh?”

“I will have you do plenty, don’t worry about that,” Itachi answers. “However, it will be on my terms, not yours.”

Shisui looks dubious. “You are so goddamn frustrating, you know that?”

“I might have heard something along those lines before, yes.”

Shisui huffs. “Look, Itachi— _look_ , I’m sure you’re a little familiar with my _reputation_ **,** yeah? I know what I’m doing. I’m not an idiot. I promise you I know way more about this world than you do. You’re walking around this operation blind.”

Itachi gives him a glance over, suspicious. “Why are you suddenly so interested in helping.”

Leveling with him, Shisui says, “The sooner we get the kid the sooner you let me go, right?” he pauses. “Or is it already too late.”

Itachi’s eyes sharpen. “Too late? Why do you say that? What do you know?”

“Woah, hey, nothing, man, take it easy.” He holds his hand up—one lower than the other when the chain of the handcuff snaps to full length—in surrender. “I’m just guessing something went wrong from your shit mood.”

“My—what?”

“You’re pissed!” He shrugs. “I just guessed you found a body and the kids dead and all.”

Itachi looks down, brows furrowed. “No, that’s not—that’s not it at all.”

“Meaning that something else _did_ happen.”

Itachi pauses, and then scoffs. “As if it is any of your business.” He turns to leave the room.

“Come the fuck on!” Shisui yells. “This isn’t fucking right, you can’t just keep me locked up here like a stray dog!”

“A stray dog,” another voice interjects.

Goddamn fucking Sasuke.

“What a fitting analogy,” he says, smirking.

Itachi runs a hand over his forehead as Sasuke enters the room. “This is not the time….”

“I need to talk to you, Itachi. Come here.”

Itachi sighs. He turns back to Shisui. “I’ll try to work things out to be more…suitable to your tastes, alright? Just…give me a moment.”

Shisui huffs.

“And keep it the fuck down,” Sasuke snaps, “before I put a muzzle on you, _stray dog_.”

Shisui’s lip curls.

Goddamn fucking _Sasuke_.

\--

_0645— Hiruzen Sarutobi wakes his grandson, Konohamaru Sarutobi._

_0718— Hiruzen Sarutobi sees Konohamaru Sarutobi in the hallway. This is the last known sighting of Konohamaru._

_0730— Hiruzen Sarutobi leaves the estate for work. Calls goodbye to Konohomaru. Konohomaru responds._

_0745— School bus comes for Konohomaru. Konohomaru is not seen entering the school bus._

“Itachi.”

_0800— Konohomaru is counted absent during roll call_

_0823— Mrs. Addams calls the mayor’s estate. There is no answer._

“Itachi.”

_0852— Mrs. Addams calls the mayors office. The mayor is busy in a meeting and does not answer. The secretary takes a message that Konohomaru did not arrive to school._

“Itachi, you are holding that paper far too close to your face.”

_0914— A silver haired man is captured on CCTV at a 711 about—_

“What have I told you about ignoring me?”

Itachi blinks, staring at the empty space in his hands where the report was. He looks up to see Izumi holding it stingily away from him. He frowns. “Give that back.”

“I will do no such thing,” she sniffs, turning from him and slapping the stack of papers down on an adjacent desk. “You have been reading the same report for almost an hour now.”

Itachi wrinkles his nose. “I have not been reading the same report.”

“You absolutely have,” she replies, retreating to the kitchen. “The same page of the same report, to be precise,” she calls. “I’ve been watching you, sweet cousin.”

Itachi hears porcelain clinking together.

He thinks about getting up and getting the report back.

He thinks twice.

“Are you going to tell me what you’ve been spacing out about, hm?” Izumi asks, returning from the kitchen with a tray in her hands.

Itachi runs a hand over his forehead, blinking his eyes to try and dispel the dull ache he realizes is growing. Maybe he really was holding the paper too close to his face.

“Here,” Izumi says as she approaches, holding out a glazed clay tea mug, “white tea. To help clear your head. It’s lotus. I got it from Vietnam when I went with Justin.” She nudges him. “And it has no caffeine, so it won’t keep you up all night like you love doing so much.”

Itachi grimaces as he accepts the mug. “I don’t want to be insomniac.”

“Don’t you, though?” She takes a mug of tea for herself, setting the tray with the pot down on a different, cluttered table than the one Itachi sits at. She gently adjusts a pile of papers that tils precariously to the left at the light jostling. “Now, my sweetest cousin, my dearest friend.” She levels her gaze with his, and her gaze turns almost unbearably soft and sympathetic. “What has happened.”

Itachi hides his face in his tea for a second.

She pulls a chair over and sits in front of him.

“It’s merely some confusing information regarding the case, that’s all.”

“Well,” she says as she smooths her hands over the imaginary wrinkles on her skirt and crosses her legs, “we both know that’s not true, but go on. Talk about your case.”

He glares at her. “Do not mock me.”

She gives him a smile. “I apologize. I do not mean to. Honest. You know me.” She straightens her back a little. “Come on, talk it through with me. Let me take a crack at it. Yeah?”

Itachi eventually heaves a breath. “Sasuke spoke with a veterinary technician the other day. Apparently one of the victims was regularly treated at the clinic she works at.”

“Ah,” Izumi says, nodding.

“Obviously there was a reason he had to resort to treatment at a veterinary facility instead of a hospital.”

“And it is highly probable that that reason is criminal.”

Itachi shrugs. “You would think.”

“Do you know what he was getting treated for?”

“Mostly minor injuries,” Itachi answers, “but we don’t know how he got them. From what we know it sounds like the injuries were the result of human attacks. The technician was left out of the loop, and when Sasuke questioned the veterinarian he said he didn’t know. He was only treating him because he believed Russel deserved a second chance.”

Izumi frowns. “A second chance from what?”

“The vet said he didn’t know. He didn’t ever ask specifics, he just knew Russel was involved in something that wasn’t good for him, and when he showed up at the clinic he treated him.” He sighs. “He said it was the only act of kindness he knew how to extend.”

“And you don’t believe him.”

Itachi squints at the floor. “I’m not sure yet.”

“What does your gut tell you,” she pressures gently.

Itachi sips his tea and replies, “He knows more than he is letting on.”

She smiles a little. “So we just need to find out what he is protecting. Maybe whoever was attacking Russel would come after him?”

“ _If_ someone was attacking him,” Itachi amends.

“Alright, fair,” Izumi replies. “Assuming that Russel was being attacked by someone, perhaps the vet was scared into keeping quiet about whatever Russel was involved in.”

“It’s possible,” Itachi says into his tea mug, “but why would an assailant keep dropping him off at a clinic to be treated just to rough him up again?”

Izumi purses her lips.

“I just don’t see how or why the veterinarian would have ever made contact with the attacker. And if he did—why would he keep it quiet? If he really did have compassion for this man, wouldn’t he have wanted to extend help more than just compassion?” His brows furrow. “Furthermore, why would he keep quiet about it now, when he could help bring the murderer to justice?”

“So you _don’t_ think he knows anything more?”

Itachi wrinkles his nose and sets his empty tea mug on the table. Izumi immediately rises, carefully retrieving the pot and refilling it. The sound of swirling hot water is gentle, and the steam that rises twists and curls calmly. “I don’t know,” Itachi finally says.

“So perhaps there is no attacker after all. Could it be a self-harm situation?” Izumi sits back down.

Itachi frowns. “Technically, but I hadn’t considered that. It seems implausible.”

She shrugs, rubbing a finger against her own mug that she holds in both hands. “It could be something ritualistic.”

“Like a cult?” His frown deepens.

“I’m not sure. From what I’ve read from his file, everyone that knew him said that he was kind and gentle. I’m just trying to reason what would get him into repeatedly violent situations.”

Itachi keeps his brows furrowed for several more seconds before he deflates. “I don’t know.” He runs his hand threw his hair, tugging at the pony tail. “And I don’t like how frequently I’ve been saying that lately.”

She smiles, eyes impossibly fond. “Ah, Itachi, I know. You so hate not knowing. I suppose that’s why you succeed at this job so well.” She leans forward, extending one pale hand, her fingers brushing underneath his chin, tilting his head up so she can make eye contact. “It’s okay that you don’t know everything right now. That is the nature of investigation. You’ll get it, Itachi, I know you will.” She leans back again. “Besides, all this that you’ve told me? This all sounds like a lead, Itachi. You finally have a lead again.”

“I know,” he answers.

Izumi tilts her head, eyes scanning his face. “And yet you don’t sound happy about that.”

Itachi is quiet for several more seconds. He looks down again, and the exhaustion he’s feeling begins to slowly sag his shoulders. The room goes completely quiet save for the ticking of a clock on an adjacent wall and the obnoxious hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen. “This case is turning out to be much bigger than I thought. I thought it was going to be a mere kidnapping and ransom, but this…there’s something much darker going on here. I can just feel it.”

Izumi nods slowly, absorbing his words and reluctantly agreeing, albeit silently.

“I’m realizing now that this case is going to be a nightmare.”

“I think we all knew this case was going to be a nightmare the second you signed your little experiment on board.”

Itachi uncharacteristically groans, letting his head fall back. “Please do not call him an experiment.”

“Pet project?”

Itachi’s head snaps up. He glares. “Much worse.”

Izumi giggles.

Itachi sighs, setting his tea down. “I really underestimated how much flack I would get for my decision with that. First Sasuke, then my father, now you—I even think Shisui—”

“Your father?”

Itachi looks up, blinking. “Pardon?”

“You got…flack from your father.”

Itachi opens his mouth to say something, and then immediately deflates a little.

“Oh.” Izumi’s eyes turn sad, and she reaches a hand out to touch Itachi’s knee. “That’s why your upset. You fought with your father.”

“I am not upset,” Itachi gently argues, turning in his chair back toward his desk.

“That’s why you spent an hour reading the same handful of sentences over and over again.”

“I didn’t—” Itachi gives up arguing. He’s never won an argument against Izumi.

Probably the only person who he hasn’t won an argument against.

Izumi stares into her teacup for several seconds, watching the steam dance, before she speaks. “It is quite bold, what you did, and risky. But you know that. You always have.” She looks up at him. “I have never known your gut instinct to fail you before, cousin, and I doubt it will now. You have the single most elusive criminal this country has ever seen chained up in a room singing show tunes to get your attention.”

Itachi snorts.

“You have done something _no one_ else has done. No one else has even dreamed of doing, I would bet. You’re even succeeding in making him so bored he wants to help.”

“That wasn’t my intention, I swear,” Itachi says. “I’m not that sadistic.”

“ _That_ ,” Izumi emphasizes, smirking. “Either way, it’s just more leverage.”

“I guess,” Itachi says, letting out a sigh, slumping in his chair.

Izumi stands again, taking the tray of tea back to the kitchen. “You know,” she says, “once you succeed in this—which you will, if you’re starting to doubt that—that father of yours is going to laud you to the entire firm, his perfect son who did the unthinkable and has made him _oh_ so proud.” The sound of water slapping against the metal sink can be heard. “And he’ll hold it over Sasuke’s head till the end of time.”

“Thank you for bringing up one more problem,” Itachi mutters, not quite loud enough for Izumi to hear, listlessly swiveling his chair.

Izumi exits the kitchen, drying her hands on a frayed, ugly green cloth, the edges nearly unraveling and an unappealing brown stain marring the center. “This too shall pass, Itachi.”

“That is by far your most overused phrase.”

“Because it’s true. And you need to hear it.” She stands right in front of him. “I have to go back to main headquarters tomorrow morning, so I need to take off now. You know I’m only a phone call away.”

For her sake, Itachi offers a smile. “I know. Thank you, Zumi.”

She wrinkles her nose. “How many times do I have to tell you to stop calling me that?”

“At least once more.”

She rolls her eyes good naturedly and leans over, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“Promise me that you will try and get some sleep tonight.”

“I’ll do my best.”

She throws the washcloth at his face. “Brat.”

Itachi does _not_ try and get much sleep that night. It’s almost eleven when he pushes away from his desk, rubbing a determined hand over his eyes as if that will do anything to correct the gnawing headache that only grows as he strains his vision over tiny font in the dull lamplight. He considers making coffee and just pulling another all night-er; he thinks of Izumi scolding him, and reconsiders.

He ends up sitting outside the hideout. Maybe the night sky will calm his fraying mind, maybe the fresh air will soothe his groaning eyes.

Neither really work.

The air is cold, and crisp, as are the stone steps underneath him. His hands hang listlessly in the air, wrists resting on his knees. His breaths are chilled, bitter. He stares into the empty black sky.

He loses track of time as he sits out there, just feeling the air wash over his skin, the wind rustle his hair. The distant sound of traffic whirs through the trees and reaches him faintly.

Sasuke joins him eventually, sitting next to him, hunching over his legs. He doesn’t even light up a cigarette, just sits in the silent cold with his brother.

“Dad’s an _asshole_ ,” Sasuke says unexpectedly.

Itachi looks over at him to blink in surprise.

“I mean—” Sasuke huffs. “No one says it, but we all know it. He just says things to hurt people, he just….” He takes a moment. “He’s just an asshole, Itachi, okay? The shit he does—constantly comparing us, trying to make me feel inferior next to you and then shitting on you in private?” He shakes his head. “It’s messed up.” A glance to his brother. “I really didn’t think that you would be hung up on wanting his approval more than me.”

Itachi shrugs a little. He doesn’t really have an answer. He was pushed too hard too young—his childhood was nothing but strictness, nothing but lessons and discipline and scolding. No matter how good he was, no matter how brilliantly he succeeded, his father wanted _more_. It was a rat race of succeeding and outdoing himself, a race in which his only relief were the small smiles, pats on the head and grunts of mild approval.

And the thing about children is—they never really stop wanting their parents’ affections.

No matter how old they get.

“He didn’t used to always be so harsh,” Itachi says, voice soft. “You only remember him as cold as he is now. But….” A muted horn honks in the distance. “He was different, before he lost Mom. He was…tender. Especially when she was pregnant with you.” He smiles a little. “Mom brought out the best in him. Brought out the best in everyone, I think.”

Silence falls between them again. Itachi knows that Sasuke will always be at least a little bitter towards him. After all, Sasuke never got to know his mother. No matter how hard he wracks his brain, no matter how hard he _tries_ he was just too young to hold any memories of her before she passed. He knows her face through pictures, her voice through the metallic veil of a video recording, her mannerisms through Itachi’s fond stories. Itachi had to see her in death, yes, but he also had the privilege of knowing her in life.

“Itachi—Mom would be _so proud_ of you if she could see you today.”

Itachi stays staring at the ground.

“I know I don’t remember her, I know I don’t really….” He trails off. “You know how I know she would be proud of you?”

Itachi doesn’t say anything.

“Because anyone with half a _brain_ would be proud of you, Itachi.”

Itachi manages a dry chuckle.

Sasuke stares at his hands for a few moments. “Obaa-chan always said you were so much like her. Mild mannered and soft-spoken. And pretty.” He laughs a little. “And clever. She always said you got your clever streak from her.” He rubs his hands together.

There’s more silence, as nothing really needs to be said, and then Sasuke mutters, “Really, asking you what she would think of you. Father should be asking himself that. She’d rip him a new one if she knew he was being cruel to her children.”

And at that, Itachi allows himself a small laugh, more genuine this time.

Sasuke smiles over at him, thankful that he got his composure to crack a little. “It’s like…I can feel her sometimes, you know? I can feel her. I can’t explain….” He sniffs, running a hand over his face. “I don’t know. But I feel her.”

Itachi nods slowly. “I understand. I feel it, too, sometimes.” He lets out a breath. “You’re headstrong like her, you know.”

“And here I thought I got that from Dad.”

Itachi shakes his head with a small smile. “There’s a big difference between being headstrong and stubborn. I’m the one that took after Dad in that regard.”

Sasuke snorts. “I won’t argue with you there.”

Itachi looks over, eyes soft, smile fond. “She loved you so much, Sasuke. More than anything. I never saw her as happy than when she would rub her belly while she carried you, or the way she would sing you to you in the morning. You were her world the second she laid eyes on you.” He reaches out, tucking choppy black hair behind his brother’s ear. “Don’t ever forget that, okay? Don’t ever let go of that.”

Sasuke ducks his head a little. He scoots closer to his brother and rests his head on his shoulder. “I know you miss mom just as much as me. I know it’s hard for you, too.” He fidgets a little. “Mom’s gone and Dad’s an asshole. It’s almost too cliché to be interesting.”

Itachi snorts.

“At least….” Sasuke trails off, feeling his cheeks warm a little. “At least we got each other, right?”

Itachi smiles, eyes going teasing, and he shoves his fingers in Sasuke’s hair to tousle him _hard_.

“Wha—hey! Asshole!” Sasuke squawks.

Itachi laughs a little as Sasuke bats his hand away and glares at him.

“Yes, little brother. At least we have each other.”

Itachi isn’t mindful of the time when he reenters Shisui’s room. It’s nearly one in the morning when he opens the door.

Shisui is asleep on his arms, slumped over the table, his curly hair spilling around him.

Itachi frowns as he moves into the room. “Shisui?” he calls.

Shisui jerks up, eyes blurred disoriented. One of his cheeks has a red smear from where it’s been pressed against his forearm. “Wha—what’s going on.”

“What are you doing?”

Shisui blinks sleepily. A curl falls over one of his eyes. “What do you mean? I’m sleeping?” He looks around, as if he’s missed something pivotal. “What time is it? What did I miss?”

“Why are you sleeping on a metal table?”

“Um…” Shisui wrinkles his nose as he tries to wake up. He pulls his left arm up, and the snap of the handcuff chain is distinct. “Don’t really have anywhere to go.”

“What—” Itachi looks angry. “Why are you wearing that?”

Shisui looks around. “Am I in a different fucking timeline? _You_ put this on me, dude.”

“Yes, and I told Izumi to take it off before she left.”

“Izumi?”

“You were supposed to get a mattress.” He huffs, frustrated. “But apparently absolutely nothing gets done here unless I do it.”

“Uh.” Shisui shrugs a little. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

“It is,” Itachi mutters. “One moment.”

Shisui just sits.

He still wants to know what time it is.

Itachi returns with the tiny silver handcuff key. He squats down next to Shisui’s chair, still looking rather angry, to unlock it. The cuffs unclick and jangle together as Itachi throws them on the table. It’s a rather loud noise, and Shisui somehow feels that loud noises are out of character for him.

Itachi takes Shisui’s hand in his. He rubs the flaring red mark wrapped around Shisui’s wrist, frowning.

Shisui blinks at him owlishly.

“I’m getting you into a hotel room tomorrow night, okay?” Itachi promises, backing away, acting as if nothing is out of the ordinary even though Shisui _definitely_ thinks that was at least a little out of the ordinary.

“Okay,” he answers. He is more of less dumbfounded, a little bit more than half asleep, and maybe even slightly hallucinating.

“I’m sorry that this has been—the way that it has been. Things have not gone as smoothly as I was anticipating.”

“You mean the rest of your little gang isn’t fond of you toying with me? Golly.”

Itachi sends him a dry look.

Shisui smiles a little bit. “You should introduce me to them, if that’s the case. I think I would like them.”

“Trust me,” Itachi mutters, “you would not.” He turns to leave the room.

Shisui hesitates, knowing he should just shut the fuck up, but Itachi looks so _tired_ — “You alright, man?”

Itachi seems thrown off guard by his question. “What?”

“I mean,” Shisui shrugs. “I know that you’re just going to say that it’s none of my business, but you’ve seemed…kind of fucked up today? I don’t know.” He shrugs again, wanting to play it off. “Just asking.”

Itachi stares at him for several long seconds, his face perfectly blank and neutral. He eventually unperceptively softens. “I’m fine.”

Shisui eyes him.

He decides to let it go.

“Hey, can you make sure the hotel room has a flat screen? Drag race is starting again and I need to see my girl Miss Masters in full HD.”

Itachi doesn’t understand most of that sentence, so he chooses not to respond.

“And do I get unlimited room service at this hotel?”

Itachi blinks.

“And I assume there’s a bar, right?”

For some _unfathomable_ reason Itachi finds himself smiling. “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”

Shisui kicks his feet up on the table, loud, and shows off the most shit eating grin. “Course not, sugar. You gotta put in at least a little work.” He winks.

Itachi snorts. He crosses his arms and leans against the wall. “I love how you think I’m not working.”

Shisui shrugs. “What am I supposed to think? I don’t know jack shit about this whole thing.”

“Yes, well,” Itachi runs a hand over his head. “I’m sure you’ll regret asking to be more involved once we get into the thick of it.”

“I’m more of an act now, think later type of guy.”

“Oh.”

“Or ‘Do it now, Remember it Later.”

Itachi arches a brow.

“Sleeping with Sirens, man, come on!” He folds his arms behind his head. “Hair like that and you’re telling me you never had a scene phase?”

“A what?”

Shisui rolls his eyes. “Jeez, you really are no fun. Ask Sasuke. He definitely seems a little punk rock.”

“I…probably won’t do that.”

“Fine. Spoil sport.”

Itachi shakes his head, smiling again. “Let me find you a blanket and something that can function as a pillow.”

“Aw, you’d do all that for little ole me?”

Itachi’s eyes go a little playful. “Don’t get too excited; it’s going to end up being a dish rag and some rolls of toilet paper, probably.”

Shisui laughs, letting his legs drop from the table. “I can—” He clears his voice, and in his best Tim Gunn voice, furrows his brows and says, “Make it work.”

Itachi does not get the reference, and looks ever so confused. “Right,” he says slowly. “Be right back.”

Shisui snickers as he leaves. Itachi’s kind of a stick in the mud, but at least he’s a good sport. Shisui has the feeling there’s a real person under his perpetually uninterested, neutral façade. Maybe even a cool person.

And that’s not a good thought.

Because Shisui wanted to hate Itachi as much as possible and get all this shit over with.

But, he well, _doesn’t_ hate Itachi. At all, really, despite having every reason to.

And that’s—that’s a dangerous path to start walking down.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Drag race all stars 4 starts THIS FRIDAY tune in and support my girls!!!!
> 
> Sasuke is prickly but he has a Soft Center and he BIG loves his brother 
> 
> i don't like fugaku and you cant change my mind. i never will. he's a fuck for waht he did to his kids 
> 
> (the tea is i don't even like mikoto that much but i can bend my opinions about her more easily)
> 
> i really love shisui so much it's insane 
> 
> his singing was directly inspired by that one always sunny episode 
> 
> do it now remember it later is a song by the one, the only, sleeping with sirens. kellen quinn was like, the justin beiber to scene girls. 
> 
> (I'm still a scene girl at heart btw)
> 
> eeeeeee i still love hearing your thoughts about what's going on if you guys want! please let me know if this gets boring or predictable 
> 
> i am really tired and delirious and did this isntead of my 45 end of the semester papers so!!! fuck me!!!
> 
> Oh also! Per a comment I got on the last chapter, I just wanted to make it clear that Itachi and Shisui are not related in this at all!! So if that's not your cup of soup then don't worry! :)
> 
> i love each of you individually come talk to me any DAY of the week
> 
> <3 <3 <3 
> 
> have a good one! Until next time!

**Author's Note:**

> eep?
> 
> if this is a flop then i won't keep working on it. I'm not super satisfied with it but it kind of...appeared on my laptop so I'm trying to make it work. this is plot based, as apposed to all of my goopy fluff-based works. 
> 
> forgive me if there are tense changes, this was originally written in past tense and then i decided it must be in present for...some reason? so i combed through the whole thing and changed each verb. I'm bound to have missed a couple. 
> 
> i would really love feedback, both validation and constructive criticism. really really would love it. 
> 
> :)
> 
> thank you to each and every person who read this. love yall. SO MUCH. have a gooood one. 
> 
> <3


End file.
